Theodore the Sacristan
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Theodore (Latin: Theodorus) was a sixth-century[1] sacristan in the Church of St. Peter in Rome. He is mentioned in the writings of Gregory the Great, and was later venerated as a saint.
What is known of Theodore's life comes from Gregory the Great's Dialogues, where he appears in Book III, Chapter 24.[2] There, Gregory records that Theodore once rose very early in the morning in order to tend the lamps that hung by the door of the basilica. He was up on a ladder that he used when refilling the lamps with oil, when Saint Peter appeared to him vested in a white stole. The saint asked him, "Theodore, why have you risen so early?" and disappeared.[2] Theodore was afterwards struck by great fear, and in his shock was unable to rise from his bed for the next several days.[2]
Gregory goes on to editorialize on the encounter, saying that the apparition was a sign of Saint Peter's favor towards Theodore: "The blessed Apostle wished to show those who served him that whatever they did for his honor, he always and unceasingly observed it, for the recompense of their reward."[3] When the interlocutor of the Dialogues, Peter the Deacon, questions why Theodore would have been shocked and sickened by having seen Saint Peter, Gregory replies with a citation from Scripture in which the prophet Daniel is likewise shocked into illness by a troubling vision: "And I Daniel languished, and was sick for some days: [...] and I was astonished at the vision, and there was none that could interpret it" (Daniel 8:27).
Gregory mentions Theodore alongside another saintly sacristan of St. Peter's, Abundius.
Theodore died in 560.[4] His body is believed to have been laid to rest in the basilica where he served, although the precise place is not known.[5]